


Bastien und Bastienne

by heyguysitsher, TheDastardlyDuo



Category: Amadeus (1984), Amadeus - National Theater Live
Genre: Adultery, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Antonio Salieri - Freeform, Body Worship, Canon Compliant, Childishness, Classical Music, Consensual Kink, Dirty Jokes, Dirty Talk, Domestic Disputes, Domestic Fluff, Dominant character, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Humor, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Loving Marriage, Multi, Other, Play Fighting, Sad Ending, Sexual Content, Slice of Life, Spanking, Submissive Character, canon neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyguysitsher/pseuds/heyguysitsher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDastardlyDuo/pseuds/TheDastardlyDuo
Summary: Snapshots into the private life of Constanze Weber Mozart and the little husband of her heart, for better or for worse.
Relationships: Constanze Weber Mozart & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Constanze Weber Mozart/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Caterina Cavalieri
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Overture

**Author's Note:**

> For Ben, who is starting to become my muse. Sir, you had better watch yourself. If you don't think I'll write a hundred fanfics for niche fandoms, knowing full well only you will read them, you are dead wrong.

Every morning, the air gets a little bit colder.

They both notice it, it starts the moment they wake up- they swing their legs over the side of the bed and have made a ritual out of wiggling their frozen fingers and toes to get the stiffness out.

They shake and shimmy wildly, first the feet, then the ankles, then kick at the knees, up, up, and up, and imagine warmth running all the way up their bodies, right up to the top of their head. And when they’ve shook everything up to the head, they lean over and kiss the other person on the top of the head, and it’s a race to see who can plant the biggest, smacking kiss there first. Wolfgang is a head taller than Constanze, but she is quicker, and she’ll snatch him up in her arms before he’s done wiggling, peppering him with kisses and tickling him until he begs for mercy.

“ _Pietà, pietà! Liberami!_ ”

_“Aha! I am an expert huntress! I have caught the little wolf in my trap! Look, see, how he writhes in my grasp! ”_

_“Stop it! Padrona, per favore!_

_“In French! In French! You must say it in French!”_

_“Maîtresse je vous en supplie!”_

_“German, now! I want a good, strong German man. Or shall I move my torture to your tummy?”_

_“Lass- Ah! Lass mich bitte los!_ _Bitte Jägerin!”_

_“Oh, I can’t help it! I shall feast on this little pup! He looks far too delicious! Grrr-rrr-om-nom-nom!”_

_“Gah! Stanzie! Stanzie-Wanzie!”_

She would always relent, though not before leaning down and blowing an enormous raspberry on his navel, which always made him double over in her lap in a fit of giggles, his chin on his chest, his lanky arms wrapped around himself.

Every morning it was just the same. Every single morning. But he never grew tired of it.

No matter if she were tired, or groggy, or hungover, he would nudge her awake if he had to. He delighted in such simple games as these, and without them, he grew despondent, as if he were dealt some terrible loss.

 _“Because we have to.”_ He would offer, matter-of-factly, every time she rolled over groaning with the pillow pressed against her ear. _“If we don’t, I’ll catch a chill, and then won’t you be sorry! Ha!”_

Many things at Number 11 were like this. Everything had to be done his way- he was, after all, the savant. The greatest musician ever to live, and such a legendary instrument demanded pristine keeping. When they had first made a home together, he had threatened her- if everything wasn’t just right, he couldn’t play. He had spoken almost in terror. She had of course not believed him; the man exuded genius. It was practically spilling out of him. So prolific since he was a boy, he couldn’t contain the music inside him if he tried. In time, of course, she came to realize: he had meant he wouldn’t be able to play the way _he_ wanted. And as such, the world had to crumble and fall, every man and woman must cave, the very eaves of the house seemed to creak and bow at the will of young Mozart. He could conjure notes, but they wouldn’t be the right ones. He would be _a_ musician. But not the greatest. Not the chevalier. Not _Mozart_.

He needed morning wiggles, and nose kisses, and beef broth with chives, and to retire at 9:30 exactly, and on Wednesdays, for everyone to wear red. He needed to jump on the third stair, have the sitting room painted yellow, and he needed to hold Constanze’s hand when the curtain rose.

That’s what made the music come.

Maybe it was because Constanze didn’t mind it so much that had drawn them together. Altogether, she liked the way he ‘worked’, what he needed, the more she came to know it. Unlike the outside world, she knew her Mozart wasn’t a broken or special mind, just a different kind altogether. A human variant, in a world that was not his own. If that made him act strangely, that was the least of her worries.

She loved the boyish streak in him, he had a fire that matched her own. All the men in her life were so stale and boring, stiff and powdered in their stale old wigs and stale old ideas. Mozart wasn’t like any of them- never before had she met a man who felt like a playmate. He revived a girlish fantasy in her that made every day a joy, and every moment a game.

Not only that, but even with all his quirks, never had she met a man so easily pleased.

It took absolutely nothing to make him laugh, that was for certain. He was only person she knew who enjoyed rude, stupid humor as much as she did. he saw in her what everyone else did not. As for his sexual predilections, well, she wasn’t labored so much as amused by it. The irony was not lost on her that a man so conceited and self assured, once in the privacy of his home, liked nothing more than to be degraded and spit on and beaten.

And while some might find it strange, she had begun to see the softer side of it all. To the rest of the word, she was a common girl. But to him she was a goddess to be worshipped. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Her body enthralled him. Sure, in the daylight hours, he loved to shock with lewd language, lauding her tits and her arse, and speaking at length of wild escapades. But behind closed doors, he was so attuned to his senses that he could be satisfied spending hours lying in bed just playing with her hair, burying his nose in it, interlacing their fingers.

Sometimes in the evenings, he begged to curl up at her feet by the fire, like some loyal dog, hugging onto her ankles. Better still, he liked to sit on his knees by her chair and lay his head in her lap while she read, so she could wind her fingers in his tousled hair. The two of them, huddled underneath the one threadbare blanket.

Were these traits childish? Perhaps. But she didn’t mind. If he had been denied his youth growing up, being shepherded like a show animal from concert hall to concert hall, why the hell couldn’t he have it now? Especially when the world was so dark and cruel sometimes. 

Constanze treasured his innocence as a beacon in a word of grey conformity.

It was actually the glimpses of his maturity that scared her the most.

They disturbed her. And they grew more common by the day. 

The man so sensitive he would feel physically ill at the sound of a discordant note, could make himself just as sick on cheap liquor.

The man who always begged to touch her hair, and trace her soft skin so gently and curiously with the pads of his fingers, was the very same who would come home with a blatant, almost comical swagger after each rehearsal of _Die Entführung..._


	2. Soprano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria of Konstanze: "Ach ich liebte" ( "How I loved him." )  
> \- Act 1, Die Entführung aus dem Serail

It was a crisp Autumn of 1783, and out of the many nights that Conzanze's husband had been out at night, this was one in which she had elected to stay up and observe him returning home.

Having had herself a quick supper and a haphazard wash-up, she sat at the top of the stairs in her nigthdress, cloaked in shadow, with a clutch of Baicoli in her lap. Her supply of pastry was dwindling when the door creaked open. She saw her Mozart enter on tiptoe, his nose pink from the cold, his expression anxious, but infuriatingly jovial. The kind of look a child might carry on his way to opening his Christmas gifts at midnight, and she wryly pondered to herself what manner of toy he had unwrapped this night to leave him thus enthralled.

She watched as he hung up his coat and stamped his boots on the mat. He was humming the last phrase of ‘ _W_ _elche Lust_ ’ from Act 2. For her amusement, she waited patiently to announce her presence until he was at the crescendo, at which point she cleared her throat loudly, and watched as he jumped like a little white rabbit in a snare.

“My dearest- up so late!” If her suspicions had been tenuous, his tone immediately confirmed them. He refused to look at her, his eyes scanning the floor as he clasped his hands together behind his back.

“My little lover, out so long?” She replied flatly, one eyebrow cocked. 

“Yes, the staging went on for quite a long time.” He sniffed and addressed the carpet and rocked back onto his heels.

Mozart couldn’t tell a lie to save his life. Truth be told, he hadn’t much practice. Day to day, he was honest to a fault. It seemed that only she, his wife, was the one honored to see his pathetic attempts. What joy.

“Rehearsal ended an hour ago, Wolfe. I sent for you and they told me you’d gone. Where have you been?”

His eyes remained fixed at the floor, but now they were glaring. He chewed his lip, digging his toe into the floor.

“Oi!” Constanze snapped her fingers, making him wince. “Hell-o! I said where have you been?”

“Out for a walk.” He barked the words sharply, as if he had been choking on them, and it had taken a blow to the stomach to get them out.

Constanze smiled sardonically. “ _Really_. With who?”

“I-”

“Doing what?”

“We-”

“Walking where?”

“I-”

“You don’t know, do you?” She snorted. “You don’t know anything. You’re lying to me. I can tell, Wolfe. You’re a shit liar. You’re lying to me. You look so stupid when you lie.” 

She could see him getting visibly frustrated. His brow furrowed, his chest heaving up and down.

"I'm not lying-"

“Yes you are! I see right through you. You’re hilarious. Look, you’re getting all angry. What, are you gonna pitch a fit? Don’t make me laugh _-”_

_“I’M NOT MAKING YOU LAUGH, DON’T LAUGH AT ME.”_

The change was immediate- his sudden shouting rang out in he empty room.  
  


Mozart's chest heaved. His hands balled into tight, white knuckled little fists at his sides. Constanze saw his pale cheeks blossom scarlet with embarrassment, his eyes welling-

All the mirth slid from Constanze's face in an instant, like sand on a vertical surface. 

"I was only-" 

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I DO, YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, YOU’RE JUST A STUPID GIRL.”

His whole body quaked with white-hot, mortified rage. Spit flew from his lips when he spoke.

“YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MUSIC. YOU’RE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM! ALL YOU DO IS MAKE FUN OF ME! YOU’RE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. JUST STUPID!”

In a flash, he charged across the hall and flung himself up the stairs, shoving her forcefully aside in a way that made her gasp and sputter. By the time she had gotten over her shock to shout at him, he had disappeared onto the landing above.

"Wolfe! WOLFE!"

She heard the upstairs bedroom door slam. A couple seconds later, she heard the deadbolt lock turn.

"You-AUGH!"

Conzstanze tore off her left slipper and flung it at the door in exasperation. It struck the solid oak with a pathetic thunk, and when that didn't satisfy her, she took off her other slipper and threw it hastily to match.

"YOU KNOW YOU DID WRONG." She screamed into the unresponsive house. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, YOU BOORISH, BRAINLESS- I HATE YOU!"

It was easier to say it when she didn't have to look in his face, into his big dopey brown eyes. She knew he could hear her. Knew he must be cowering at the furthest end of the room, crouched in the corner with his face in his hands. It was so easy to strike fear in him. A mind so powerful and yet to fragile. Like the tightly bound strings of a tapestry: pull one string and you were likely to unravel it.

It was clear she had hurt him deeply, and this was no mistake.

He had always despised being laughed at, more than anything. For someone who delighted in making people laugh, he couldn't stand to be the butt of the joke. For him, it was about missing out on something everyone else saw or understood. It made him feel alienated, like an idiot or a monster. He was bright enough to know when people spoke about him behind his back, or made fun of his style, his speech pattern, his energetic nature. Devoid of any past experience with childhood bullies or educated criticism, he was utterly crushed by the slightest cruelty, and could never understand why some would ever want to be so unkind as to make fun of him, especially for things he could not change.

It had been a breach of their sacred bond for her to ridicule him. He was right: she was just like everyone else. She had done it on purpose, she supposed she had wanted to make him feel the pain she felt, somehow. So what if he felt a little rage, it was nothing compared to her. He would survive.

 _He's not a child._ She reminded herself, a necessary practice.

It would have been easier on her poor heart to excuse his behavior as boyish ignorance, but she knew better. Already, even though she had caught him red-handed with her own two eyes, she _already_ could feel a matronly urge surging up: to forgive him, to comfort him, and put it all behind them.

But she nipped this desire in the bud.

It did nobody any good to infantilize him; he was a man, a grown man with judgement and reasoning and consciousness and awareness and morality. He did not stumble into women's arms, he was not her lamb to rescue. He _pursued_ women, not only with lust but with calculated intention.

And that, _that_ was a far more harsh and painful reality to bear.

Her little schnitzel, her hopeless romantic, was only one part of a greater, more complicated, flawed human being. It was a grave error to underestimate or oversimplify him, and those who did usually ended up cursing his name and choking in his dust.  
  
...

  
Constanze slept in the parlor that night, counting the leaves on the exquisite plaster moulding.   
  


* * *

The next morning, she heard bustle and movement on the upper floors of the house. Ascending the stairs, still achey from her night on the chaise, she heard Wolfgang directing the scullery maid. 

"And I need another ream of paper, _per favore_. And here, take ten florins to the milliner, and three for yourself for your expedience." A moment later, Constanze had to stand aside as the young woman bustled down the stairs, a small satchel of coins clasped tight in her grubby hands. Slowly, she ascended the rest of the way up, cautiously approaching the door. It stood open and ajar, sunlight streaming from the wide window within.   
  
On the bed, Wolfgang lay splayed on his stomach in his dressing gown,, with a quill in one hand, and a carrot in the other. He took thoughtful bites of the carrot intermittently, scribbling notes down onto a piece of parchment. He was kicking his legs back and forth absentmindedly, like a metronome. He did not look up as his wife approached, intently frowning down at the pages as he tried to formulate melody onto the page

  
Constanze hesitated, then leaned gently in the doorway. She tried to push down the roil of awkwardness and guilt that threatened to spill up like bile.   
  
"What's that then?" She offered tentatively. 

"A carrot." 

She stifled a small smile. How could he melt her heart so fast and not even know it. Damn him. "Right. And the papers?" She nodded at the papers. 

"An aria."   
  
But of course. How silly of her, thinking he would have been sulking or tormented by marital disharmony as she had been. She, a mere mortal. His genius spared no time for such concerns. A moment to himself, and it was right back to the grindstone. Perhaps he'd even enjoyed the solitude. She felt another handful of pebbles settle in her stomach. 

She watched him continue to scribble for a few more moments. The carrot continued to diminish. She heard the grandfather clock tick patiently in the hall. 

SHe dreaded having to break the sentence, and knew not exactly what to do it with, but to her surprise, Wolfgang spoke first.   
  
"Are you going to shout at me anymore, or are you all shouted out?" Cool as you please, not even looking from his notes.   
  
Constanze felt her heart crack like a porcelain teacup.  
"No, Wolfe. I'm not going to shout at you anymore." The weariness in her own voice surprised her.   
  
She watched his boots swing to and fro in the air. The scribbling continued for a moment longer, until he spoke again.   
  
"Were you mad because I did something wrong?"   
  
Constanze blinked. "Er, _yes_."  
  
"Were you furious?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed. Was that not obvious. "... _yes_."   
  
"Are you still furious?" His voice was inscrutable, his face, a blank slate of distraction.   
  
Constanze thought about this. " _Yes_." She admitted.   
  
The scribbling stopped. He squinted up at her, blinking when the sunlight caught him in the eyes, and God, it struck his tufty white hair like candy floss, and she was under his spell.  
  
He was smiling.   
  
" _Really_ furious?"   
  
  
  



End file.
